New Search Ordered for Koricanske Stijene Victims

Bosnia’s Institute for Missing Persons, INO, has announced that it will search the Koricanske stijene locality again as it believes another mass grave could be located there.

Although 18 years have passed since Bosnian Serb forces executed more than 200 men at the ravine near Mt Vlasic in July 1992, the remains of only four persons, discovered in a nearby forest in 2003, have been buried so far.

As in previous years, on August 21, families of the victims and massacre survivors will visit the cliffs and lay flowers at the site where the Bosniak [Muslims] from the northwestern town of Prijedor were executed.  

Amongst those honouring the dead will be Muharem Elezovic, from Trnopolje, who lost two sons, Emir, aged 22, and Edin, aged, 24. Elezovic is still searching for their remains.  

“We found a few bones but we don’t know which one they belong to. There were so few of them that we could put them in a small bag,” Elezovic said.

He said he was disappointed with the various bodies tasked with searching for missing persons because they had not been able to find the remains of most of the Koricanske stijene victims, even though so many years had passed.

Edin and Emir Elezovic were taken to the Serb-run Keraterm detention camp on May 9, 1992. Their father says they were then transferred to the camp at Trnopolje.

The two men joined an organized convoy of Prijedor residents traveling to the government-held town of Travnik, where they were to be exchanged on August 21, 1992.  

Verdicts passed down by the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, have determined that on that day, members of the Intervention Squad of the Public Safety Station in Serb-held Prijedor separated a group of more than 200 men on the way to Travnik, on Mt Vlasic.

It was further determined that the Squad members then loaded the 200 men onto buses and drove them to Koricanske stijene, a nearby ravine.

They then “ordered the passengers to kneel on the side of the road and started shooting them using automatic guns,” the verdict against Damir Ivankovic read.

“The bodies of the killed people fell into the chasm, while some people jumped down, trying to avoid being killed,” the verdict continued.

Ivankovic, a former member of the Intervention Squad with the Public Safety Station, admitted guilt before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in July last year. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.  

It is further stated that, a short time later, small groups of men were taken out of the second bus in the convoy and also executed. Hand grenades were thrown down onto the bodies that had fallen into the ravine to ensure none survived the shootings. About 200 men were executed in total at Koricanske stijene. Twelve survived the shooting, however, mainly by hiding under the corpses of other men in the ravine.

Exhumations of remains were carried out in 2003 and 2009 on the basis of indications provided by Ivankovic. “After that, the exhumation was done and some remains were found,” the Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina says.

“Besides that, during the course of guilt admission negotiations, he [Ivankovic] provided us with information about another execution location. We then deployed all our services at the location and found additional remains,” the Prosecution added.  

Data of the INO indicate that the remains of around 100 people killed at Koricanske stijene have been identified. But in most cases, the remains were so incomplete that families have not buried them.

The International Commission for Missing Persons, ICMP, says that in 24 cases, they were not able to match DNA samples taken from the bones to DNA samples taken from family members of missing persons. They thus assume that not all families donated blood samples.  

For their part, families of the Prijedor victims criticize the bodies tasked with searching for missing persons for not having visited Koricanske stijene earlier, and for undertaking the first exhumations some 11 years after the crime occurred.

Edin Ramulic, of the “Izvor” Association, from Prijedor, says “numerous omissions” occurred in the first exhumation in 2003; because no one searched the broader area of Koricani, many victims’ bodies were not then found.  

“On the basis of witnesses’ statements and pronounced verdicts we knew that people were killed at two different locations, not very far from each other,” Ramulic said.

“But members of the Federal Commission [on missing persons] and other experts participating in the exhumation in 2003 failed to visit the area located to the left and right of the crime scene, to determine whether any bones could be found there.

“At the time, we knew that the bodies of the people from the second bus had not been removed and were certainly still in the same place,” Ramulic added.  
 
Staff at the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has dealt with the search for missing persons since 2005, when the commissions of Bosnia’s two entities were wound up, say they do not know whether members of the former Federal Commission searched the broader area of Koricani.  

“I was not personally present at the location in 2003 but members of my team were there,” said Amor Masovic, former president of the Federal Commission for Missing Persons.

“I don’t know whether they searched the area on the left and right side of the location, but the fact is we did not notice this at the time.

Jasmin Odobasic, who led the Federal Commission team performing the exhumation at Koricanske stijene in 2003, said it was difficult to search the broader area at the time, as much of the terrain was inaccessible.  

“It’s a huge area. It was difficult to search it, as it consisted of steep slopes,” she said. “At the time I found about 12 unexploded bombs, snakes and other things.

“We can not guarantee that more bodies will be found at the same location if the terrain is searched again,” she added.  

Masovic explained that during the first exhumation they found numerous small bones, from fingers, heels, vertebra and ribs. Many of these small bones had fallen into cracks between the rocks, so that “the Bosnian Serb forces who transferred the bodies in 1992 could not see them.  

“The bodies found in the second exhumation had not been moved but had been scattered around…Besides that, each year, when the ice melts, it drags the bones to other places,” Masovic said.  

Although 18 years have passed since their loved ones vanished, the families still hope they will find their remains. However, they fear they may not see that happen because the search has gone so slowly.

“For the families, the most important thing is to find their relatives and bury them,” Elezovic said. “We want to know where our children’s bones are. When we die, nobody will search for them.”

Besides Ivankovic, Gordan Djuric and Ljubisa Cetic were sentenced in 2009 and 2010 before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to eight and 13 years respectively.

Darko Mrdja, was sentenced in 2004 before the ICTY to 17 years in prison after admitting guilt for participation in the shootings at Koricanske stijene.

Nine former policemen from Prijedor and a former guard in Trnopolje detention camp, also charged with participation in this crime, are currently on trial before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Aida Alić is a BIRN – Justice Report journalist. [email protected] Justice Report is an online BIRN weekly publication.